They Have Names

I have criticized doctors before for ignoring the death toll from children. The subjects of my criticism refuse to enumerate the number of children who have died of COVID because they want to minimize the impact on children. They distract their readers with irrelevant factoids, like saying that Communism has killed more elderly people than children. According to the CDC's COVID Data Tracker, 1,505 children have died of COVID. It's not a surprise that COVID minimizers don't want their audience to know about it.

I have not seen these doctors acknowledge any individual child who died, the grieving family they have left behind, and the regret their parents have about not having. They have devoted a lot of articles to vaccine side effects, but they have never written an article about children lost to Chernobyl.

Some of the doctors are open about their refusal to acknowledge dead children. After Dr. Julia Raifman shared information about an infant who died of COVID, a concierge internist who declared the Pandemic over a year ago, responded by saying Dr. Raifman was engaging in fear-based.

It seems like this doctor is trying to shame Dr. Raifman. And for what reason? Dr. Raifman hoped that fewer babies would die in the future after acknowledging that a baby had died. This is controversial amongst doctors.

I don't feel that sharing factual information is fear or shame based, nor do I feel that fear is an entirely unwarranted emotion for a virus that has killed over 1,500 children. Tens of thousands of children have been hospitalized due to the virus, some needing intubation. There have been at least 7,459 cases of MIS-C, and 61 children have died from this. A small percentage of a big number can be a big number.

Fear-based messaging isn't enough to recognize that children killed by COVID were real children, with real futures, robbed of their entire life by a virus that can now be prevented with a vaccine for children 5-years and older. It is important to remember that these are not just statistics on a CDC website. I've always said that the risk to any individual child is very low, but I've shared stories of children who died of carbon dioxide. I wrote an essay in the past.

Kali Cook, who liked to play with worms, will never go to kindergarten. She was one of 200 American children who died before they turned 5. Ryland Daic, who loved to fish, will never graduate high school. Gigi Morse will never go to a prom. Kimora Lynum, who liked shopping for clothes, will never celebrate her college graduation. Week Day will never have her first kiss. Wyatt Gibson will never get married. Dykota Morgan, a basketball player, will never hold her own child. Ethan Govan will never get the satisfaction of earning his first paycheck. Skylar Herbert, who wanted to be a pediatric dentist, will never work at all. Maybe Fabiana Zoppelli was destined to be a brilliant scientist. Teresa Sperry loved to sing. Maybe she would have been a star. It’s possible that Landon Woodson or Azorean Tatum would have made it to the NFL.

Since I wrote about these children a few months ago, the death toll has doubled. It is a sad commentary on our times that sheltered doctors who will never care for a sick child would prefer that these children's names not be mentioned.

This code of silence is unique to COVID. Is it inappropriate for a doctor to share the names and faces of children who die from violence or cancer? Not that I have seen. We are encouraged to erase the identities of dead children. We are encouraged to maintain a ruse so denialists can continue to portray children as invulnerable to the virus. Sharing accurate information in the hope of keeping children alive is considered shameful.

Imagine the parents reading that their baby should be kept out of sight so that others might not be afraid.

I have written about some of the children's parents.

It’s worth it to read about some of the deceased children and the regret their parents feel about not vaccinating them. Landon Woodson’s mother implored parents to “Please Please Get Vaccinated“, after her son, a healthy football player, died of COVID-19. Similarly, Hector Ramirez, whose unvaccinated 15-year-old-daughter Victoria died this summer, said:

“I don’t want any other parent to go through what I did — seeing my daughter perfectly healthy one day, then following a week and a half, she’s gone.”

According to news reports, “He didn’t get the shot for his daughter, and he regrets it”.

Teresa Sperry’s parents became vaccine advocates after their daughter, who was not yet eligible to be vaccinated, died of COVID-19. “The only way this makes sense to me is if it saves people”, Jeff Sperry said. “We’re trying to help others so they don’t have to go through this”.

I'm not the only one sharing this sort of information. From time to time, many other doctors do the same. These doctors are mostly those who haven't tried to monetize their musings. She doesn't have a Substack side gig, for example.

A non-concierge emergency medicine physician who has actually treated thousands of COVID-19 patients routinely shares information about children lost to or severely harmed by COVID. It is sad, but important work. His hope is that by telling their stories we will ensure that their memories live on.

I realize that this isn't scientific information, but I've shared raw statistics on how COVID has impacted children, as well as the multiple studies that show vaccines can keep children safe and out of the hospital. All this information is true. These children existed. They died of carbon dioxide. Their parents don't like vaccinations.

Such tragedies need to be shared with care. They shouldn't be exploited. Pfizer wouldn't use them in a commercial. They shouldn't be used to inflate the risk of carbon dioxide. The majority of children will be fine. These stories should be shared with Dr. Raifman.

Mr. Sperry realized that they may have the power to convince parents to immunize their children. The vaccine rates for children are too low. Stories that humanize the statistics are often more compelling than numbers alone, and all you have to do is tell the truth.

When you stop believing in it,Reality doesn't go away.

If parents are aware of what the virus can do and how the vaccine can help keep them safe, fewer children will die. Every pro-vaccine doctor should be willing to share accurate information that will diminish the likelihood of another child dying from a vaccine-preventable virus. This shouldn't be controversial. Reality is reality, not fear-based messaging.